5250. LONG TIME BACK

LONG TIME BACK

Long time back I worried about nothing, now I worry 

about the wind and the rain and every other God-awful 

thing to pass my way. I think it was easier just to ignore 

all that  -  and anyway now that's just what they want : 

people in harried form, worried about their kids, their 

kids' educations, from where the money will come, and 

then where it will go. The zoning and the housing, the 

picture and the frame. No one's got their head on straight.

-

Although I may have taken my time, and walked through

things with a deliberate air, I was always nervous and scared

of what was there : a cyclone in the eye of a storm, a scorching

heat in the middle of the road. I may have said I ignored it, 

as I just now did say, but, at heart, it all been the same. 

I'm wary and angry and scorched and irate. 

No one listens, nor gets annoyed.

-

I don't want for anything, nor wish for any one thing.

I cannot find a cure for this new scene around me;

don't get it, don't want it, no way. Just this morning,

in an inner dark outside, the rollicking round moon

went sliding through the sky. It was all so silent,

I couldn't hear a thing. Best thing that happened,

some bird began to sing. (Now wasn't that a

dainty dish to put before the King)?

5249. WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME?

WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME?

What can you tell me, traveler, and what

will you say? Who am I to care anyway?

What will you tell me, distant one, and when

will you say what your meanings amount to?

My arms, small and curled, are not enough

to hold you; my feet cannot keep up. I am

but mortal, to your timeless phrases and 

timeless wings. I may have met a few masters

 in my time, but none to reach the level of

what you are, or what I aspire to be.

What can you tell me, traveler,

what will you say to me?

5248. ANGELIC RESPIRATION

ANGELIC RESPIRATION

The air leaks out the wing sockets some; no need

to worry  -  the capacity taken in is more than enough,

and - after all - it's only earth air. Whatever dynamics

here get involved make little matter to the ending of

the scene  -  a passing, quick view of another plane

of existence, someone else's unsettled home in but 

a blind figment of their own imaginings anyway.

5247. FAKE HOUSE

FAKE HOUSE

You know them, they live by the lake; where the

anglers come by on nice weekends and fish from the

backs of their cars and vans. Small campfires dot the

sand, music blares, some kids dance at night and who

knows what else. Nothing here goes on once, it all

happens again and again. Everyone enjoys a

personal spectacle.

-

The mighty Jane and the mighty Jack are lifting weights

on the edge of the corner, if you know what I mean  -  

their shadows are thrown by a Coleman onto the canvas

of their feeble tent. Lift, drop, up, down, over and over,

counting the reps. How, I wonder, is fishing at night

any different; and if so who knows the difference;

wide-eyed fish, staring baleful and shocked on the

grass, or the hunters, with their nighttime hooks?

-

I tend to remain as aloof as I can from the real  :

nothing I'd wish to enter, seeking  -  as I am  -  

only other things. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, 

let's call them; very difficult are they

to get on a physical hook.

5246. STEALTH AND MOTIVE

STEALTH AND MOTIVE

The giraffe in the corner watches - I see him with

one eye, the sort of a cubist fantasy picture  : flat

face, everything twisted and on one side. The light

from overhead, skylit, provided by the city, a Central

Park park's service enticement, splashes down on everything.

It's all so weird. The tired monkeys spray, picking like

strangers at dull, brown bananas. The jaguar slinks low,

along the ground, like a detective or a thief. A lion slumbers,

a few sheep, a tiger  -  a veritable meat stew from an

insane TV chef from Hell. I want to wince, as I wince

at captivity, and sadness and sorrow. This all hurts.

-

Should I not turn away? And leave this jungle of

hurt, bundled and packed, in its own little bubble :

the square rooms of a zoo, the intense, stuffed arena

of animals and Nature and their vital elan of all things

beholden : now captured and stolen, kept in a pattern

so others may watch  -  the centurion from Dubuque,

those family guys from Phoenix or Maine, the 

happy couple from Stealth and Motive.

5245 YOU'RE ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE

YOU'RE ON THE TIP

OF MY TONGUE

I feel that's something like John Updike would

say, or write  -  one of those fiery-sexed Maples

characters. It's like that all when nothing goes

my way. I'm spoiled, and angry too. My

bicycle fixation, in pieces on the ground :

one sprocket, a chain, and the rest of all

that goes with it.

5244. I HAD IT ONCE ON

I HAD IT ONCE ON

Mountaintop precipice when I was twelve. The 

clouds were below me; I was higher than the sky.

I like to call it my midway moment   -  circus-clown,

juggler, bearded lady, tattooed man. Then another

guy, some little Italian, kept walking in circles

with his organ-grinder monkey.

-

I walked the streets yesterday. I was dragging a

load of laundry, a basket of wealth, and a bagful

of desires. Five girls went by, laughing. A few

business guys, too entrenched in their conversations

to notice. Now, I am broken and tired. Wasted anew.

-

In the particular reality I live, there is absolutely no

difference amongst these things, these two sides of

my coin. Where is that bus anyway. I want to  

be gone, and I had it once on.

5243. NACRAMENTAL

NACRAMENTAL

I spoke with Bill Burroughs the day before last, 

Jean Genet just before that. Today was the day

 for some diatribe or other that Henry Miller was 

supposed to send. I got it, but I'm bored to death. 

Or sentimental tears. Anyway, I wouldn't be that 

surprised  to see Francois Villon show up 

when I was taking a shit. And  -  as it is  -

what would I care then? Nothing.

-

I slept with Anais Nin. It was pretty good, and 

she really was a wild-child. Sensitive, but wild. 

Over here, in Princeton, I can visit the grave of 

Sylvia Beach anytime I like; and I do. No 

comparison, however, let me say.

-

Today, I would have really liked to be in Philadelphia;

have a beer on Rittenhouse Square. Nice place to be,

I wished I was there  -  the vegetable vendors on 

Saturday morns, all those bizarrely beautiful farmgirls

from the Pennsylvania lawns. The Barnes & Noble

shyly fronting the square, some idiot Negro out front,

declaiming on about something. The natural foods

geek with the wispy beard, playing a ukulele.

-

What's the use of living anyway? You do it 'til you

die; and then you don't, and then it's over. You sit

down in your pants, feeling your own shit, sitting in

your life's debris. Roll the eyes once over more.

And die. I hear it's still for free.

5242. SUSPECT GENITALIA

SUSPECT GENITALIA

In reading a prospectus of some upcoming

movie, the subject is Aliens and Scarlett

Johansson is one. With suspect genitalia.

I realize I do not know what that could mean,

and I realize as well that I am probably in trouble.

-

Cloak that baby in an alien skin? Make it dissemble,

disappear, or shine? Air it all out and the hell with

the rest? What could it mean? She digs for oil and

hits a dry hole, in 'Under The Skin'. Ok so far.

A movie mad by the director or rock videos.

There's a shiner for you. Pride goeth before the

fall. Disjointed, confusing and utterly incoherent

films  -  Sexy Beast. Birth. Under The Skin

is even worse. Ms. Johansson's last three

flops, it is said, show she's not doing such

a swell job of looking out for her career.

I'll help; here, here. Suspect genitalia

can make me cheer!

5241. CONTEMPLATION

CONTEMPLATION

I have found Nothing. It has reached surpassing, 

and all other things pale : a bright vase, refracting 

a purple hue across the white wall -  for nothing 

and useless as all. The first warm day of something,

I see a funny-looking guy bending over his car with

a sponge and a pail, while his hose nearby wails.

Water streams, and I think of lies and fabrication, 

how they too spread from pavement to dawn.

Knowing it's all the same, I end the finish and

set it down. There is no lark in this willow, and

this willow in fact is still dead; or dormant anyway

from a Winter's misery plant. Like a miser plants,

that's misery. All ideas and contemplation.

-

Not so long ago it was a new year, and in the

freeze cold people yelled and got drunk, spitting

forth firecrackers and obscenities at will and their

own urgings. It was cold and it was dark. Now it

is light and it is warm. A contemplation then, of

continuity, must suffice. I am not the one here

to eat ice. 

-

Spell me out, wise-man, carrot-nose, tophat-guy,

snowman who melts and is now gone. I remember 

you. Treacherous, and there were more than one.

No pages are catalogued to keep you in place,

and people's memories fade. You were there, and

another was there; coal eyes, and a scarf for a week.

It's almost funny, this thought and contemplation.

-

As it seems to go : all things are all things,

and this contemplation makes a moment

somehow stay : fracas, tumult, calm, peace.

5240. MAKETH ME LIE DOWN

MAKETH ME LIE DOWN

I won a million in some lottery again. I hadn't

even really remembered buying the ticket, but they

said it was purchased at a pharmacy counter in

Red Bank, NJ. Yeah, I'd been there then. So, good,

they were right in that. I won a million in a greasy-palm

lottery I should never have played. What it got me isn't 

worth crap  -  geeks at my doorway, exposing themselves

Until I show them I'm a man; then they come back with

their wives. What the fuck? Is any of it worth the price?

5239. UNCLE CARBUNCLE

UNCLE CARBUNCLE

He died in 1961. He had two left hands,

but handled a hammer well  -  wishing for

soups and nuts, he often drank gruel instead,

a watery fashion of broth, marked by nothing

and textured only with vapid air. From the top

of his head, I'd noticed once, grew two stubs

of antennae  -  television, Martians, motivations

from above? He'd never answer; he'd never say.

Why a ten-year old kid would even ask about

things no one else seemed to see was a question

by of and of itself  -  the oldsters and parents sat

around tables, house to house, visiting each other.

Late afternoons, they'd talk on Sundays about the

things to come, the Mondays and the Tuesdays to

be. Or they'd talk of shows they saw, or who said

what, and how cruel that man could be, or that

singer who swiveled his hips  -  all that crazy,

grown-up stuff. Uncle Carbuncle just sat,

almost playfel, he never said a word. Nor 

did anyone else, as I've noted. 'Hey, Carbie,

what's that shit on your head? What you 

got growing there, antlers?' I guess, I 

mean, it could have been funny, no?

5238. NOW THEY ARE ALL CRAZY SO

NOW THEY ARE 

ALL CRAZY SO

Walking in a line, a distant frieze of open

place and unlocked sheds. There are cows

and donkeys, goats and chickens, it seems, 

everywhere; and this yard is cluttered with 

dung and cast-off objects of use and desire.

I am lost, amidst smithereens of inattention, in

things gone awry : motivations, intentions?

My soiled boots alone are the best judges 

of that  -  after all, they walk through things 

I can otherwise avoid. The skeletons of old

wrapping are inside the barn, thrown down,

with the hay of cows and the threading of

milk-pump tubes through the ceiling rafters.

If half of what I imagine is a quarter of my

life, indeed, I am sunk already, and lost.

If all I see, however, is half of all that is,

my life is rich again, and fraught with

expectation, promise and joy.

5237. MAKING THE SOUNDS OF A DOG AS I SLEEP

MAKING THE SOUNDS 

OF A DOG AS I SLEEP

I possess this one life. Or is it? A section of 

ribbon-time somehow rolling yet stopped for

me? With all its bends and turns, I am aboard

for the ride. Or, I am not. The distinction 

may be minuscule, but it's there.

-

This morning held a velvet sky, black with  -

of a sudden break  -  a newly large and

surprising again number of distant stars.

Or it did not. I can't really be sure.

-

Like the distant haze of the Milky Way,

there it all is. I see it. Am I in it? Am I

part? Or am I, same-stead, walking

distant towards some other place?

5236. FIND THE HAND, BREAK THE HANDLE

FIND THE HAND, 

BREAK THE HANDLE

9th street, the oasis of time and the man making

speeches : new blossom Springtime budding.

Way out, none at all. The gate is already open.

Three kids standing around  -  looking at porn

at some guy's little phone. The talk gets excited -

who's done what before that way with whom.

-

Two blocks away, a few stragglers are leaving 

school in the late afternoon. A break in the

clouds, with sun, for a day at least. Let's go.

5235. FLAME SPEED BLOWOUT

FLAME SPEED BLOWOUT

Caution has another name, pickle-head. Go throw

it to your winds. I left the boat before the sinking

and never complained I was wet. How's by you?

-

Here's the fictive  twist you wait for : it was never

my fiddle, not even my boat, and the captain was a

fake. I hired him in from the circus. So, now you know.

-

But do you see, and do you understand : all this old

Navy crap for nothing  -  plebes and seamen, salutes

and silly caps. I'd rather we polished the guns and fired

off salutes. Pirates at heart, let's steal the thunder.

-

This crate can't roll any faster, even with the winds

cooperating. We've reached now flame speed blowout;

with nothing to go to but down, every rivet and nail,

splitting a seam, popping a cork, slicing this rig in two.

5234. HEARTS AND MINDS

HEARTS AND MINDS

Here's what I want to savage  -  the hearts

and minds of all Mankind. The doers and

the doubters, the givers, and those who take.

And those who take, the worst  -  for with

them there is never any preamble of Goodness.

Or Truth. Or Beauty. And they only mine the

ore of dark and doubt. Aligned as such,

 they should fall dark as well.

-

And here is my gist for those who manage

well  -  the checkbook fiends, the counters

and the clerks, the moneylenders and the

jerks : stop but now, but for now your

moment passes, and you too will soon

be as bare and you are cold.

5233. I GOT ALL THE HOOPLE, BUT NOT THE MONEY

I GOT ALL THE HOOPLE,

BUT NOT THE MONEY

Here, here, the land is ebbing and all 

the fierce epithets passing away. The 

way it is just is : Saccharin. Lindisfarne 

and the ancient radio waves of aliens. 

Now what to call it is all the rage : Internet,

television, consciousness, virtual reality or

Reality itself. You name it, I haven't a clue.

Instead I stay here writing. Instead I remain 

adrift among men but anchored within Truths -

messages entering cable'd and fable'd hallways,

girls I've met from Avenue B, the ones from

Stuy'town Village at the end of 14th; they tell

me their stories and I bow in restraint. Only my

old times keep me here : sitting bare-elbowed at

some fisherman's bar-joint, swilling rock-gut

whiskey while staring at gin, slurping beers and

pretzels like the Germans here never let out, or 

in. That's me, that's me. Another dress rehearsal

rag, with my face in the mirror staring back

at me. She talks like an elder lover but she's

as young as my heart can ever be. I'm watching 

the rise and fall of her breasts beneath some

almost-thin-enough fabric to see. Hmm, let me.

Outside, her dog  -  Joe Don Baker  -  sits

complacent on a soft pinkish leash with a

little metal clip. Only now, now do I realize

this whisper, speaking  -  like a mark from

some old Atlantic City dance hall with no

one left inside it to sway or dance, or say.

Here, here, the land is ebbing, and all

the fierce epithets are passing away.

5232. ENDURES WITH OUTRAGE

ENDURES WITH OUTRAGE

Damn, I got hit in the face  -  a swarm of

decrepit flies still oozing the slime dripping

from them. Where they were just previous,

I haven't a clue  -  though I noticed the

cemetery gates were open.

-

If I was already a corpse, nothing of this 

would matter. Life is magnified, no matter

what its ending : the glimmer in the mirror 

is only you looking back. No avoidance.

-

My father used to say don't worry, the

maggots are already within you. They

self-propagate from within your corpse

once dead and untended. I never knew

where he got that from, but, just in case,

I stayed mindful of my guests, along for 

the ride.

5231. 1924

1924

(to go with Drawing series #12)

Powerless mobile glasses.

Team.  Empty.  Open.

Box Man : I watch things

while watching the loom.

-

Past things thriving still,

on savannahs and ancient trees.

-

1924

-

Hertofore visible and now not so;

one King Midas' donout donut 

w/one scabbard cupboard.

Theme home - 1. Strength;

2. Truth; 3. Sentience. How

scathing was the bold escape?

Thus far the factor.

-

The land was ours before we

were ther land's? Iron hands.

Regent Crusader; the moat to

the drawbridge factor. Big men

hanging quicker. 

5230. I'M HAVING TOO MUCH FUN TO LAUGH

I'M HAVING TOO MUCH 

FUN TO LAUGH

And I don't care who likes it : what I steal

or what I patch away  -  don't you hear this

hammer ring; I'm gonna' split this rock and

split it wide! In the landfill, long after the

tannery shops had left  -  all that oozing

detritus, poison water now, and the dogs

lapping it up, until the wild curs were dead.

Too bad. I always thought, instead, they should

have made politicians line up and, glass-by-glass,

drink, each of them, until they too were dead. It

would serve them right, the fucking puke-bastards.

All their fine-tweed bullshit ideology never amounting

to anything anyway. Like a big-chinned John Kerry

kissing a big-chinned Jay Leno. Know what I mean?

5229. ONE MILLION THINGS, LET'S GO

ONE MILLION THINGS, 

LET'S GO

Fabled wines and butter-pats of gold.

Convert to my new faith, crowd. I offer

you what no one has offered before :

I offer inconstancy, excess, power

and wine. Nothing is forbidden in my

faith  -  there is all loving and drinking.

-

Outside, here, in the ketchum'd harbor,

blue boats are dressed like gulls, the little

feet of kittens and gulls sweep endlessly

by; a morning's dew fog, low, white, and

touching on all things. Everything, a gauze.

-

So come along then, hold my hand. If fears,

and if you must, trepidation coach you on,

that too is OK. I won't mis-lead, I won't

take you to another direction, some place

you'd rather not go. Oldsters are walking

too, holding petals, donuts, and cameras.

-

Oh moonlit sea?

Oh Hershey bars?

5228. TO THIS POINT INVISIBLE AND NOW SOLID MATTER

TO THIS POINT INVISIBLE 

AND NOW SOLID MATTER

'The world in its dark grace, I have tried to

record it.' Yes. No. Yes. Each of us must come

to terms with what it is we see. And what we

will say. I am comfortable with that. Look around

you : see the destruction, the stupidity, the despair;

and believe you are right. Backpacks on the

benches; caps on their hooks, buckles on

each person's boot. Language should be

tortured to speak the truth. The most

elementary form of torturing one's

language is called Poetry. To this

point invisible and now 

solid matter.

5227. I'VE FOUND NOW MY ENTRYWAY NEW

I'VE FOUND NOW 

MY ENTRYWAY NEW

Oscillate, rotate, shake, observe. Hoboken has streets,

New Brunswick has sewers. A young fellow named

Funk is walking around drunk. I wouldn't mention this

at all, but it bears some importance. Outside the orbit

of elastic time, the bends and crimps of Life go on.

5226. JUST LIKE IN THE RAILROAD DARKNESS

JUST LIKE IN THE 

RAILROAD DARKNESS

(for me)

Just like in the railroad darkness of a hundred cold mornings, 
I am still reading the chill in the air, what it presents to me 
and where. Stuck on squander-point earth, I guess, again. 
That siding over there, the one with nothing on it, sits vacant and 
stares : last Summer's weed's still dangle, now brown and 
broken stiff where nothing grows. They've not even attacked 
a light to  the lamppost nearby  -  where once the railroad 
clerk marked boxcars, where once the engineers counted 
barrels and crates and weights for loading. The chemical 
company is still there; now but a sorry ghost of its old 
once-self, but  still working nonetheless. I see those guys on 
the siding  -  waiting for their jobs to begin. I imagine they 
buy sneakers, clothes and food with their money  -  
to support their families, kids and all. Such the great value 
of still being employed. This vicious half-light now rising; 
it brings forth another day  -  the kind with glee and 
penny-whistles, happiness and wonder. 
Children in school, lunches in bags,

whittlers whittling down at the old town square.

So many wonderful lives, all wrapped up in one.

Stuck on squander-point earth, I guess, again.

5225. TAKEN FROM THE ILIAD

TAKEN FROM THE ILIAD

I was stolen away; you took me, you and all your

wastrel guardians of this and that : tower men and

gunnery captains, bombardiers and lancers. The first

to die was Peter Pike, a focused man who hurried to

darkness. And then the earth grew stained with bright

blood as men fell in death close to one another. It was

another place entirely, a place maybe I remember.

It was Woodbridge, 1967, or Pleiku or even

Dienbienphu. Nothing like that mattered much.

The girl I remember, the one who looked so much

like a happy whore, had a '65 Mustang and she was

proud as hell of just that alone. Marlene she was,

from Newark, and she just kept laughing as, each by 

each throughout the personnel office, the boys were

walked through, marked off the employment rolls,

as they gave up their jobs upon be drafted, and each

dutifully went off to South Vietnam. They too bled,

some died  -  each one trying to remember to shield

his neighbor from the final stroke, or thud, or blast,

whatever it may have been. So all fought on, as

a line of living flame. Yes, a line of living flame.

5224. FACES TO THE FRIEZE

FACES TO THE FRIEZE

Giovanni's Room, 1956 : faces to the frieze;

immediately found  -  and just as immediately

lost again. STRIKE! Paterson 1913 Silk Mill

Strike! The man from Thomasine Alley; wool-blue

pancake cap. Treefoil lids and refolded clothes.

Box of silence : curved, not linear, logic.

A curvilinear 'Buskedelphia' and some

Liberty's light!

-

Tree on trash lid Gothic now :

'we moved here in, oh, 1973.'

-

To go slow is to meander like a

Roman Cross pattern.  Battle

flag of the Republic. Hymn.

Sun going down.

-

The ghost of Caitlin Maye.

The art of any period tends to serve

the ideological interest of the ruling class.

Fooling chase. Crowning periods of 

achievements even during the darkest

of ages. I am remembering your name.

-

Individualism posits equality.

Equality is inconceivable.

Culture bus! Boxes of Art!

Substitute armies to intangible

sources. Retrieval's mirror.

Drunken boat. Rimbaud curler.

-

I have no cosmos because

there is no cosmos. Life consists

of agility. Things in pieces OK.

'The sky has no surface and is

intangible. The sky cannot be turned

into a thing and given a quantity.

Here!

5223. ISLETS OF THE PAST

ISLETS OF THE PAST?

Where are the doorways to the other world

I used to travel - lanes and alleys taking me

somewhere else? They've gone, it seems, or been

transformed to baseless and boring things. Now,

where the once was so much, there is so little.

Again and again and again, I look back, just

to see what may have been left behind.

5222. ANNABELLE PERCY

ANNABELLE PERCY

On the whole, the entire rock rolls : out in

the harbor I'm watching the New York seals

cavort their Staten Island waters, under the 

Narrows Bridge, where Fort Wadsworth stands.

There's an old, historic house here, set high on 

the waters, Alice Austen house, I think. It looks 

out, its steely chance of living again, but now

chained by Park Rangers and all their idiot's

delights. Even chained Liberty couldn't beat 

off this pack of mules. Yet, I find accommodations

I can make to most anything at all.

-

Annabelle Percy please have mercy for a fool

and his vanquished ways. A man blind from

birth cannot learn high-speed travel so easily.

A man born without hands must drink only from

the waterfall or stream which lets him slurp,

on his own and dishevelled, from his wet and

open hands. Outside of this moment, I may just

now say, I have no other moment to go to.

And you are right in ten million million ways,

(though I am right in one).

5221. EVERY MUSCLE CHATTERS DEAD

EVERY MUSCLE 
CHATTERS DEAD

Europe again has blinders on while militants roam

o'er the sea. The towers of Tours, Pisa and Eiffel,

even those, are thinking about crumbling. To nothing.

And away. There wouldn't be a crack left of memory

if we didn't make an effort. All those beautiful French

girls, with their hairy armpits yet shaved pudenda.

What are we to do? And why? These are what

pass for mysteries today? Questions of the moment

and the hour. Our philosophy itself has now been

shaved  - no longer any quest for Beauty or Truth.

There's a small place in Belgium called Monto Pitay,

where they serve cold blood mixed in wine. Red wine,

of course. Yet I wonder too why. All those saleints

from WWI, are we meant to drink their reminders?

I shudder to think, while every muscle chatters dead.

While every muscle chatters dead and the whole,

wide, crazy world roams.

5220. RABID POST

RABID POST

'I don't care about him; I can't, he's a pillar-to-post

monster of the sort they don't make any more.' 

The fence had fallen where the Robert Frost

dumpling met her Jack Frost eyes. 'And anyway,

this has been the worst Winter ever. Now he

wants to think about marriage. Two guys?

Crossing swords and banging the flesh anew?

What's up with that? And what am I to do?' The

one lady jammering had to be a lost Jewish

mother just waiting to atone  -  like a million

other threadbare units on the New York City

streets, in two's they roam, talking of all these old

caveats and the rules they enfore and live by. So 

weird, like every pathetic horse ever led by bridle

through Central park in the height of day. What

cares I for what they say? The ladies, not the horses.

Temple E'Manuel nearby, Park Avenue saunters;

the turkey-trot of any Jewish love bite goes on.

5219. FILL ALL MY FIELDS WITH FALLING WATER

FILL ALL MY FIELDS 

WITH FALLING WATER

I will take my leave of nothing here. I will exit by the

front door, same as I came in. I will not look back 

and, upon exiting, perhaps not return. For these 

fields are now too Springtime happy for me. 

Fill all my fields with falling water. 

-

I am as certain of the end as I ever was of the

beginning, and  -  of course  -  I know more now.

There can be no more uncertainty than that of the

cloud, changing shape, as it passes, and changing

shape again just as we cling to it. Gone. In the same

manner, I look skyward to see for something, 

anything, what it is may matter.  Fill all my

fields with falling water. Yes, what it 

is may matter.

-

 Dropping energy in a carpool of foolishness,

leaving footprints where the sands wash away

and the fierce winds prowl  -  everything so

soon dispersed in a while. Fill all my 

fields with falling water. I will take

my leave of nothing here.

5218. DULCIMER ECHO

DULCIMER ECHO

On a train at the station, sitting by the

end  -  the dark night has just lifted for

nothing. I can hear the sounds, yet cannot

yet see : the old cupola and the church

tower, with that recorded sound of the

timing bells. Oh no, not again? What need

have we of Time? But, anyway, shiftless one, 

with eyes that roam, with hands that beg for

use, with reasons a'plenty for nothing at all.

Why? Why do you arise just to greet another

day? John with white hair, without even a care,

will empty his spleen on the echoing green?

No. That's so yesterday; and it just cannot

be right in any way at all. At a train, on

the station, as the cars go by.